Noise with 30D shooting hockey

The attached image was shot with a 30D and a 70-200mm 2.8L lens. 1/250, 2.8,

800ISO and a monopod. Is there something I'm missing that is causing this

high degree of noise. I was under the impression that the 30D was exceptional

with low noise at high ISO's.

 

Any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Glenn

Looks seriously underexposed, which is normal camera reaction to all that ice. Adjust exposure to +1 or +1.5 stops and noise will go away(well, almost all of it)

Can't really tell if there's noise on an image that size. Post a crop of it, the we can see what the problem is.

You will need to go much higher (1600ISO) and overexpose by at least a good stop... and yes there will be noise!

 

My basic settings for hockey are Manual Mode, ISO 1600, f2.8 and 1/320 to start... in a regular arena... in good venues (well lite) you may go as fast as 1/500...but that requires a lot of light!

 

no matter what you do do NOT use the AV mode...

Are you shooting RAW? I do not think that the Camera does any noise filtering in RAW... Whatever you are using for your RAW conversion will do the NR for you. (Link below is for the 400D, but I think the principle is the same) So you might get better performance shooting JPEG in this situation, depending on your workflow. Lastly, I think people tend to hear Canon does noise really well, but in reality I am starting to think other companies have junky NR algorithms and buy sensors from their competitors. ISO 800 will have noise in areas of the picture that are dark, even the fabled 5D will not eliminate the noise. (All of the current generation Canon DSLRs are very close with regards to noise at the end of the day).

 

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos400d/page18.asp

 

(Link with noise comparison between D200, 30D and 5D)

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos30d/page20.asp

Agreed, underexposed at least 1 stop, probably a bit more.

Consider getting Noise Ninja, it will make a dramatic difference on these borderline exposure images. I agree with the others that you should shoot in manual mode, about +1-1 1/2 EV. The manual exposure mode will help you to avoid confusion of your light meter with the background.

Your image was too small to see how bad the noise was. Normally I use Neat Image to help the noise but as was suggested the shot was underexposed which I corrected in PhotoShop together with the white balance.

Like others have said, you image is 1-2 stops underexposed and hence the extra noise. Large

white areas such as snow, ice wedding dress, etc., will fool any meter. Lucklly they still make

photographers ready and able to correct for such situations.

 

You could spot meter off a medium gray card in the same light, use an incident light meter or

peronal experience to dial in the needed +1-2 EV.

You need to do a custom white balance on the ice, at the given ISO and exposure (the ice should be partially blown out under the lights). The camera needs to be set on MANUAL, as a start try ISO 3200 F4 at 1/320th. You also need to shoot RAW and possibly post process using NeatImage or some other noise program. The shot you posted is very underexposed can't tell about the color.

Thanks everyone...but correct me if I'm wrong, shooting in manual mode, exposure compensation will do nothing. I believe it has no effect in manual mode.

 

Glenn

you right... we meant to overexpose by a good stop or more (manually)

If you are shooting Raw then in effect the noise reduction would be off. However, I can

recomend you try the software Light Room from Adobe. This software is free for now for

testing. In the developing section of the program you will find a slider that is called

"Smooth" and "DeNoise".

 

I have been shooting a lot in low light. I shoot everything in RAW with my 30D. The

smoothing"

is key to getting the images to look like the JPEG low noise character. RAW does have

some great advantages when you work with images that make it better that JPEG.

 

For example I have included a sample image from a recent shoot. The photo was indoors.

All I had was my on camera 580EX. I took the shot RAW by bouncing the light off the far

wall to the left. The wall was not white so it gave a color cast. The camera was as ISO 800.

I used a 50mm 1.4 lens at f 2.0.

 

If you make this shot with a JPEG then the image will be corrected for noise in camera.

However, to get the correct color balace it is much better to shot Raw and remove the

noice with Smooth and color balace in Light Room. The shot will not look as red as the

JPEG would. If you color corecta JPEG you will loose speed since you have to open the

image and color corect with levels or curves.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Jose<div></div>

Use your histogram to meter. Change your exposure until the major white portion of your histogram (right side) is shifted all the way to the right but not be chopped off (overesposed). Shoot in manual mode (usually about +1EV for me). You will need to go to at lease iso1600 for the shot you showed. When I go to ISO 1600 I use Noise Ninja to process the imagges.<div></div>